Discuss Theories for the Breakdown of Relationships (8 and 16 marks)

One Theory for the breakdown of relationships is Walster et al’s Equity theory. This says that people want equity in a relationship and inequity has a big potential to cause dissatisfaction. People who either give a lot and receive a little or give a little and receive a lot in a relationship would see inequity and therefore become dissatisfied leading the relationship to breakdown.

A supporting study was conducted into the Equity Theory by Stafford and Canary (2006) who asked over 200 couples to complete measures of equity and marital satisfaction. It was found that satisfaction was highest in those who saw their relationships to be equitable and lowest in those who saw it as inequitable. This would support Equity as a theory for the breakdown of relationships as it shows that if people don’t feel equal in a relationship they are more likely to become dissatisfied and therefore not want to maintain the relationship causing it to breakdown.

DeMaris (2007) also carried out a study which supported the equity theory as a theory for the breakdown of relationships by having 1500 couples take the ‘US National Survey of Families and Households’ and found that inequity was a high cause of marital dispute and raised the risk of divorce, especially when the women felt under benefited. This supports the equity theory as it shows that people who do not feel their relationship is equitable are more likely to have marital disputes and think of divorce causing the relationship to breakdown.

The Equity theory however could suffer from Gender bias as it has been suggested by research that women and men see equity in a relationship differently and that women often seek less for themselves in a relationship. This therefore reduces the Validity of the theory.

The validity can also be reduced by the fact that the Equity theory is also seen to be culturally bias as research would suggest that in other cultures, such as Jamaica, equity is not an important factor in a relationship. This theory can therefore not be generalised to all cultures.

Another theory for the breakdown of relationships is the Investment Theory. This theory looks more at how much commitment to a relationship is down to investment rather than satisfaction and says that if we have a smaller investment in a relationship we are more likely to have a smaller commitment to it therefore leading to its breakdown. These investments can be financial, temporal or emotional.

Dindia and Baxtor (1987) conducted a study which supported the investment theory by looking into how 50 couples maintained their relationships and found that the longer a couple was together the higher satisfaction was with less maintenance strategies being used. This suggests that temporal investment is linked to the commitment to the relationship which would support the investment theory as a theory of the breakdown of relationship as, as the investment got bigger so did the commitment to maintaining the relationship therefore showing that if the commitment is low there is less want to maintain the relationship meaning it is more likely to breakdown. 

The Investment theory can be said to be culturally bias and cannot be generalised across the world as in some cultures it is things such as religious pressure or breakups being socially unaccepted that determine whether or not a relationship breaks up rather than how much investment or commitment a person has to it.